Health News Update: Food and Aging

Mark Smith • August 31, 2026

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Health News Update: Food and Aging                                                             8.31.26

Hello again: As you may know, aging is the primary risk factor for the development of virtually all chronic illnesses and/or conditions. The healthier we age, the fewer problems we encounter. This aging process and the number of chronic conditions we get and how much pain and suffering we have to go through is dramatically accelerated by inflammation and is aptly called inflammaging. Could a low inflammatory dietary pattern slow aging?

 

“As people live longer, it becomes more important to understand how daily habits such as diet affect the way we age. This study examined whether different dietary patterns are linked to faster or slower biological aging in 764 French adults aged 20 to 100 years. Participants’ food intake was compared with measures of biological aging, assessed through blood measures, and body fat. People who more closely followed a DASH-style diet or a plant-based diet had signs of slower biological aging. Part of this benefit was explained by lower levels of body fat. The link with a plant-based diet was especially clear in older men. These findings suggest that eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and low-fat dairy may help slow biological aging.”

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-026-01643-1?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=email&_kx=DvmM8IKQSAudAGT9qfUNAWhOBpB85ROZa5OG_o2eIyU.RBPf56

plant-based diets significantly slow aging

 

 

Bottom Line: Similar studies have revealed the same things…here it is from another study:

 

“The strongest food predictors of favorable aging-related diet scores included dietary patterns high in vegetables, fruits and high-quality protein (dairy, fish and legumes), and low in added sugar, sugar-sweetened beverages and red/processed meat.”

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-025-00625-2?fromPaywallRec=false plant-based diets slow aging in specific organs such as heart, kidneys and muscles.

 

If you need to upgrade your food plan, you might consider starting this process by keeping it simple and do it in steps.

·      Remove all added sugars, and then a few weeks later…

·      Remove all refined grains, and then a few weeks later…

·      Remove all fried foods, and then a few weeks later…

·      Remove all processed foods, and then while doing this…

·      As you do all of the above, begin to increase your variety and amount of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and whole grains along with high quality proteins.

·      Adopt an early time restricted feeding pattern (see my previous blogs about this).

·      After every meal, go for a 10-to-15-minute walk at least twice a day.

 

Other things that improve aging:

·      Regular exercise.

·      Solid sleep patterns (7.5 to 8 hours on a regular schedule).

·      Socialization regularly.

·      Having a purpose.

·      Spiritual endeavors such as prayer or meditation.

·      Lifelong learning: reading, learning a new language or playing music.

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Health News Update: Pesticides, Cancer & Why Go Organic

By Mark Smith • June 29, 2026
Health News Update: Pesticides, Cancer & Why Go Organic 6.29.26 Hello everyone: Slowly but surely, despite the health and food industries downplaying the risks, evidence is emerging that the long-term consumption of trace amounts of toxic chemicals can add up to some serious health consequences. “Our process-based model, encompassing 31 key pesticide active ingredients, together with an innovative stratification of cancer cases by developmental lineage, reveals a robust spatial association between environmental pesticide exposure risk and cancer incidence. In pesticide-associated cancer hotspots, exposomic profiling of liver tissue—a primary target of chemical carcinogens—uncovers a distinct transcriptomic signature of pesticide exposure, implicating a non-genotoxic mode of action that disrupts core regulatory circuitries sustaining cell identity. Collectively, these findings strongly support a mechanistic link between pesticide exposure and cancer, challenging assumptions of human non-carcinogenicity derived from reductionist experimental models. This study redefines the exposome as a lineage-conditioned, mechanistically tractable framework and shows how complex pesticide mixtures can contribute to carcinogenic trajectories, with profound and far-reaching implications for global health policy and socio-ecological equity.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s44360-026-00087-0 pesticide exposure & cancer risks Bottom Line: Whenever possible, purchase your food from organic sources including local farmers that use regenerative and organic practices. Not all foods need to be organic, and to decide which ones absolutely need to be, you can access the Environmental Working Group’s yearly list of the Dirty Dozen foods that are the highest in pesticide residues. This will also include the Clean 15 foods that do not need to be organic as they are usually grown without or with very low pesticide levels. https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php dirty dozen food guide Additionally, high quality nutrients support the natural detox processes our bodies use to get rid of any and all toxins. When we consume the Standard American Diet or Westernized Diet, we are low in the nutrients and co-factors needed to support optimal detox cleansing. So always start with food upgrades as they will carry your upgrade the farthest. Remember that most chronic health conditions start 20 years before you even notice them creeping up or becoming diagnosed. What you do now is creating your future. It used to be said that you are what you eat. Another way to say that is we become what we eat…so please take good care and make sure you always put high grade fuel into your Temple.

Health news Update: High Fat Diets Promote Inflammation and Illness

By Mark Smith • June 22, 2026
Health news Update: High Fat Diets Promote Inflammation and Illness 6.22.26 Hello again: This news has been slow to surface with the popularity of keto and paleo dietary trends, but the following information is what is known about the typical Standard American Diet, also known as the Western Diet. “Conclusion : HFD-associated low-grade inflammation results from overlapping effects of dysbiosis and high fat intake, with crosstalk between microbiota and fat-driven inflammatory processes independent of gut flora involving multiple mechanisms. For this reason, it is difficult to determine what occurs first, thus, HFD-driven dysbiosis and HFD-related inflammation should be considered partially independent but closely correlated mechanisms.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8619527/ High fat promotes inflammation Bottom Line: As you all know by now, inflammation will cause, perpetuate, and/or aggravate every known illness or condition, including aging. The next logical question is what to eat? The answer is the Green Mediterranean food plan…which essentially going vegan but allowing some animal-based foods no more than 3 times per week. This takes some planning but is most easily achieved by using a ‘crowding out’ method. This is simply accomplished by including more and more unprocessed, whole plant-based foods in place of processed or fatty foods and naturally reducing those less than healthy items. Below is some more information to help you make the switch…knowing that you can improve your day-to-day nutrition by making small consistent upgraded choices is critical. Upgrades to improve your health path do not usually arise from one big resolution but from those small individual choices made every day…and these add up to some major improvements over several months and longer. “The gut microbiota is responsible for recovering energy from food, providing hosts with vitamins, and providing a barrier function against exogenous pathogens. In addition, it is involved in maintaining the integrity of the intestinal epithelial barrier, crucial for the functional maturation of the gut immune system. The Western diet (WD)—an unhealthy diet with high consumption of fats—can be broadly characterized by overeating, frequent snacking, and a prolonged postprandial state. The term WD is commonly known and intuitively understood. However, the strict digital expression of nutrient ratios is not precisely defined. Based on the US data for 1908–1989, the calory intake available from fats increased from 32% to 45%. Besides the metabolic aspects (hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, sympathetic nervous system and renin-angiotensin system overstimulation, and oxidative stress), the consequences of excessive fat consumption (high-fat diet—HFD) comprise dysbiosis, gut barrier dysfunction, increased intestinal permeability, and leakage of toxic bacterial metabolites into the circulation. These can strongly contribute to the development of low-grade systemic inflammation.”
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